Reply #1: Sadly, I am not sure it was just right wing elements here

[karynnj]

Just as in the 1980s, there seemed to be substantial anti-leftist sentiment that likely spanned the entire Republican caucus and into the Democratic one. There was a strong attempt to tie anyone speaking against the coup as in favor of the leftist leader and Chavez and Castro. President Obama made an initial break by not endorsing the de facto government as was done in all past right wing coups. He then appeared to stay silent. Clinton and the State department had a completely muddled position that likely made it appear we were tacitly supporting the coup.

My daughter recently went to protest the School of Americas for the second time. This time with people she now works with as a volunteer in a program that got its start helping victims of our Central American policy who fled to the US. The two people who led this coup are "graduates" of that "school". Our country is intimately involved because of things like this. This is a major disappointment for me, even though I did see that having real change here would have come at a big political price. Though Kerry ended up losing on this, I am glad that he wrote the op-ed he did and that he tried to push for a different policy.